Downtown Knoxville restaurant CJ’s Tacos on Gay Street celebrates – Knoxville News Sentinel
Chris Jones wanted to give Knoxville a different type of taco.
Five years, two food trucks and a restaurant later, CJ’s Tacos delivers just that.
The brand now has a home inside the Embassy Suites on Gay Street, one of downtown Knoxville’s most prominent hotels. There, Jones has defined his brand of fried tortillas spiced in his own special way.
“It just kind of dawned on me one day, I’ve always had this idea about the tacos specifically,” Jones told Knox News. “Where I come from — Saginaw, Michigan — we fry the tortillas there. And when I moved here, there was really nothing like it.”
Defining the CJ’s Tacos brand
After working restaurant jobs, Jones realized that he wanted to set off on his own.
At 25, he launched CJ’s Tacos from a food tent at the 2017 Tennessee Valley Fair.
“So we did that and it was a 10-day event. It was crazy for me,” Jones said. “I really didn’t even know what I was doing. I just kind of had to dive in. I had a concept, I had an idea and I just kind of had to learn along the way.”
Jones powered through a challenging first year in business, handling everything from kitchen prep to cooking and cleaning. Jones made the most of what he had, using his dull knives to make it through each day.
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“It was just such a learning curve,” Jones said. “I really didn’t know what I was doing. And I just had to kind of figure it all out myself.”
He’s created a large menu, with items like Korean BBQ Steak Nachos and build-your-own bowls. But the main event is, of course, choosing from his six distinct tacos.
CJ’s Original blends seasoned ground beef with grilled vegetables, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and sauces. There’s also the Asian Fusion taco, which mixes grilled chicken and vegetables with sweet and sour sauce. Holy Potato substitutes meat for potatoes, vegetables, and a corn medley.
Taco trucking along
Eventually, Jones met business partner Alpesh Patel, who helped Jones get his first food truck. Patel is the CEO of the Kana Hotel Group, which owns the Embassy Suites Downtown.
Jones established the CJ’s Tacos restaurant inside the Embassy Suites in 2020 and added a second food truck last year.
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With five years under his belt, Jones is figuring out which direction his restaurant might grow, “whether that be a brick-and-mortar or another food truck or another food truck in a different location,” he said.
For now, he wants to continue to improve his restaurant with enhanced efficiencies and menu changes coming early next year.
He’s already added a lunch combo, build-your-own nachos and the Ultimate Quesadilla to the menu.
Giving back to Knoxville
Since moving here almost 10 years ago, Jones has been grateful for the opportunity that Knoxville has given him. He’s unsure that he “could have started a CJ’s Tacos in Saginaw and it would have had the same success” that it has here.
He’s celebrating five years in business with a party from 12-9 p.m. Sunday at Southside Garage on Sevier Avenue. Both the CJ’s Tacos food trucks will be there, along with Myrtle’s Bakehouse and Pink Petal Pushers.
“I really want to just thank Knoxville,” he said. “I’m super grateful and super thankful to be in the position that I’m in. I know a lot of is just due to the community and the response that we’ve got from them.”